fear is always present
like air or dust
caught in the throat
seconds before a cough
I’ve said this before
it is worth repeating
if nothing matters
everything matters
so find what you love
and who you love
and hold that moment
tighter than ice
until it’s eternal
until it’s present
(August 18, 2026)
The morning is humid and thick with heat.
Yesterday cloaked its version of today
in brighter shades than those of nostalgia:
the past’s certainty belies its troubles.
I live along an edge of some other,
Uncomfortable in the skins given
to me for the roles I need to play now.
Like hope, regret is best left to itself.
It is as if I’m stuck in a crevice,
the walls widening above and below
where the frenzied wind leaps from edge to edge
until vanishing to violent air.
No opportunities rise with the sun;
I feel old, and know the end has begun.
(July 2, 2026)
The night is broken in a multitude
of awakenings. The dogs are disturbed
by the full moon’s motion across the sky.
Between their futile barks, I lie awake.
As dawn approaches you pull me closer,
laying your head upon my chest. I sleep,
finally drifting to the edge of dreams
where the world is neither vast nor empty.
Lately I have been thinking about death.
Not my own, nor anyone’s I know, but
Death— the absurdly inevitable
avalanche collapsing beneath our feet:
as if I can know more than what I am;
as if I am something other than dust.
(May 31, 2026)
my resistances arise
through the day
in the way
I see
the trees leaf
the roses bud
and bloom only
to let go
their petals
to the ground
and here
as well as there
in the streets
filled with anger
is a beauty
and a love
which must be held
with all our arms
and named
with all our voices
no matter how small
or fleeting
we feel our hearts
to be
no matter the terror
slithering nearby
laugh as well
as mourn
sing as well
as scream
see more
than is allowed
see what we were
see what we are
and see what
we can become
(April 29, 2026)
He is in a chair in an empty room. It is dark outside.
He is in the same room, in the same chair. Light comes through a window.
He has questions, but is hesitant to ask. Unsure of the answer he seeks.
His uncertainty is his fear. He sits still for hours at a time.
The room never changes. The furniture is static and old.
The room is not the same, depending on where you look. Depending on where you sit.
The room was new once. The room is always empty.
The room filled with furniture slowly over time.
There are windows. They are shut, without curtains.
When the lights are on you can see in the room from the street.
There is nothing to see, but white walls without art.
There are windows, one cannot see much outside.
He holds his breath for minutes at a time.
When he feints, he quickly recovers.
(April 6, 2026)
it may just be
a timely coincidence
but have you noticed
the last circle of hell
in dante’s inferno
ends in the cold
betrayal of ice
(February 17, 2026)
“the war never ended somehow begins again”
—-Natalie Diaz
they no longer confine their hatred
to the darker shadows of night
but walk about mid-morning
unconcerned when recognized
thick blood drips from their teeth
while they stand in line at the bank
or watch the game at the bar
casually drinking a craft beer
we all know them for what they are
yet say little above a whisper
we tell ourselves they won’t stay long
yet they do linger like smoke
long after the fire has burned
our lives into softest ash
(February 16, 2026)
“the world is too much with us”
-W. Wordsworth
no longer the getting and blind spending
though that is still here teeming at our feet
like low-level radiation leaking
into the spongey ground we walk upon
but the powerful’s thick drooling anger
flailing curses wildly on everyone
that does not resemble their idea
of a pastoral past they never knew
this is the time I have come to live in
a time where the soft smell of hope lingers
like a dusty corpse left alone at home
when to be cloaked in ironic disdain
is to disguise an intellectual
self-revulsion that equivocates death
(January 10, 2026)
to fill the soft holes
the auspices
have left behind
for our memory
like tattered tarot cards
to make sense of
for our past to exist
in this present
dénouement
which of course
our future will
ignore as blasé
as conventional wisdom
bangs out a beat
on a tattered drum
we must insist
like the birds
how this story goes
(October 16, 2025)
the police break down doors
the wrong doors the wrong people
but in other states other cities
I try to be optimistic
the world has been worse
the terror the killing fields treblinka
just not so close not so near to me
I try to be optimistic
the streets are not slick with blood
skulls are not stacked on skulls
fresh ash does not fill our lungs
I try to be optimistic
the sun rises over stone henge
as it has for millennia
Finished the RFB book for this upcoming Sunday’s meeting. A fairly long (161 pages, seemed longer) rant from the point of view of a working class bloke (oppressed like Caliban in The Tempest by powers greater than him). Each chapter focuses on another aspect of his oppression.The main take away is the old adage: the more things change the more they stay the same. The powers that be (church, military, education, government, labor unions, etc) all contribute, if not conspire, to exploit, control, and oppress the working class. Much of what he shrieked about is pretty much still in play in our contemporary politics. So, it was not that I disagree with most of what he screams about, i simply found the writing to be over-wrought and turgid. The book cover claims it is a rediscovered classic. I am not sure a book can be called a classic if it had to be rediscovered. Isn’t a classic— a book that people have continued to read over the years? Not one, forgotten and unread, that some editor found in a book stall, then reprinted. But I quibble.
I wake. The puppy needs to go outside.
The older dog comes along as well
hoping to roust a nervous rabbit.
It’s close enough to six by this time
to feed them, and take my daily meds.
I am tired, and worried about the world.
They finish their ration of kibble
and head happily back up the stairs.
I turn off the light, and follow along.
In the hazy half-minute it takes
for me to crawl under the sheets,
they’ve both tightly curled in bed.
I lay there unable to return to sleep,
and listen to the dogs’ soft snores.
(April 4, 2025)
It is not safe. Bears ramble
through the valley, eating
fruit and honey. Berries
stain the forest floor
in blackish red swathes
like ink poured accidentally
across a policeman’s ledger.
They have crossed the road
which runs along the edge
of the park. The dam moves
with purpose, followed close
by her rapacious cubs,
their long tongues loll
wetly from their mouths
like loose rubber pendulums.
Make no mistake, this time
it is more than mere hunger
which curls her black lips
into a sharpened smile,
more than resurgent spring,
more than the fate of time
at history’s end,
but revenge.
(March 21, 2025
I have dipped into the anthology, reading a poem here and there since I was given the book by a friend several months ago. Over the last couple of days, I read from start to finish. Finishing a few minutes ago. I have always enjoyed anthologies of poetry, finding new poets (to me), who have turned into favorites over the years. “You are Here” is no different. All of the poems have something to do with the natural world. This is not to say they are Romantic (as in Romanticism). Many of the poems are laments for a dying world, which we (humans) are killing. “She is almost two. I am seventy-five./I won’t be here when the worst/ of what’s coming comes.I think about it/ and then try not to think about it./ and then try to think/ because if we don’t—but I can hardly grasp it.” Ellen Bass writes thinking about the coming climate apocalypse. All of the poets are aware of the world they are observing and engage with it with touches of wit, beauty and horror. My favorite poem “Staircase” is by Jason Schneiderman. I will search out more of his writing. Here is a passage near the end of the stream of consciousness prose poem: “And oh my God, are you as exhausted as I am from grieving the planet? Tell me how not to be hysterical every time I see what’s coming. Every time I see what’s here. Tell me how to accept that it didn’t have to be his way but that it it. Tell me how to accept this sun, this fire, this sky, this day. Dun’t leave me here in these ashes.” The only complaint I have about the anthology is each poem is preface by the poets c.v. each of which read pretty much like the one before it. Too much about credentials of the poet, rather than the pope of the poems. I would rather the focus be on the poems, with the poets bios collected at the end of the anthology. It is the poetry that matters.
these are
the clothes
that are
left us
these are
the rags
we must
wear now
the past
divests
the future
of all
fashion
but one
(January 23, 2025)
subtext 